Thames Estuary Airport – a threat to rare bees and a waste of time

20^th January 2012

The Coalition is set to explore plans for an airport hub in the Thames Estuary in an upcoming consultation on the future of aviation. The Thames Estuary is a habitat of global importance for birds and dozens of endangered invertebrate species, it is designated as a Ramsar site and a Special Protected Area. While the Ramsar designation carries little legal weight, the SPA is strictly protected under the Birds and Habitats Directives. Hence the area should quite correctly be safe from damage and destruction.

Shrill carder bee (Bombus sylvarum) © M J Clark

The Thames Estuary is home to special habitats including flower-rich grassland, saltmarsh and bare ground vital for many endangered bugs including the rare Brown-banded carder bee (Bombus humilis), Shrill carder bee (Bombus sylvarum), White eye-stripe hoverfly (Paragus albifrons), Saltmarsh short-spur beetle (Anisodactylus poeciloides) and Mellet’s downy-back beetle (Ophonus melletii). These invertebrates have suffered major declines across the UK in the last 60 years, and they remain under direct threat from the loss of habitat through developments like the Thames Estuary Airport.

Previous proposals for an airport on the North Kent Marshes were refused because the rending damage it would do to the ecology of the Thames Estuary would be illegal. Buglife believes that this proposal should be batted away now, before it becomes yet another Government imposed burden on stretched environmental workers. Ultimately permission will have to be refused and everyone will feel that they have wasted their time and effort; that can be avoided now.

"Putting it [an airport] in an estuary is so unbelievably crazy," said Buglife President Germaine Greer on Question Time last night.

Buglife’s Sarah Henshall added “The Thames Gateway is of national importance for rare bumblebees with populations hanging on in flower-rich pockets of habitat".

“The wildlife of the Thames and Medway estuaries is quite properly protected by international law. Buglife is shocked that the destruction of such an important area for wildlife is even being considered. Our Government claims to aspire to be the greenest ever; we fail to see how progressing plans for such a damaging and unnecessary development can meet their aspirations. This hair-brained scheme is a diversion from the real priorities of halting climate change and saving life on earth”.